Media Release
For immediate
release
July 7, 2005
CAMPsites explores survival, shelter, and the portability of home
CAMPsites
July 16 to August 21, 2005
Artists’ Talks: 7:30 p.m., Thursday, July 14
The Banff Centre, Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Building, Room 204, Free
Exhibition Tour: 1p.m., Saturday, July 16
Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Free
Opening reception: 2 p.m., Saturday, July 16
Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Free
On July 16, the Walter Phillips Gallery opens CAMPsites, an exhibition about “the idea of home” that mixes representations of kitsch middle class recreation with stark visions of homelessness and temporary shelters. CAMPsites confronts notions of class, displacement, and the social and activist functions of contemporary art practice. Issues of survival, shelter, and the portability of home are central to this exploration of the varied notions of campsites.
“The contradiction between those who are migratory by design (RV owners, campers, travelers) or transitory by circumstance (refugees, immigrants, homeless) can be seen almost anywhere,” says exhibition curator Melanie Townsend. “The collective forces of globalization, the explosive expansion of urban spaces, war, famine and natural disaster have ushered in a period of unprecedented flux.”
CAMPsites marks a return to the Centre for Townsend. Formerly the curator of the Walter Phillips Gallery, she is now the curator of contemporary art at Museum London in London, Ontario. This exhibition is a co-production of both galleries.
CAMPsites will showcase sculpture, photography, video, and installation by Rebecca Belmore (Vancouver), Robin Collyer (Toronto), Kristina Jaugelis & Reece Terris (Vancouver), Donald Lawrence (Kamloops), Liz Magor (Vancouver), Tsuyoshi Ozawa (Tokyo), Sandra Vida (Calgary), and Paul Wong (Vancouver).
Among the works included in the exhibition is Bower, by Calgary artist Sandra Vida. Interested in exploring her Celtic heritage and process-based performative works, Vida has constructed several Celtic-influenced woodland shelters, or Bowers, as a way to relate to a specific location, and the forest in particular. They have become what she describes as “a site for meditation and exploration.”
Also included in the exhibition is EAT: Mainstreet Dinner for the Homeless (2003), by 2005 Governor General Award winning artist Paul Wong. Originally featured in HorizonZero, a multimedia Web magazine produced at The Banff Centre, this compelling four-minute video records a December 2002 visit to an ad hoc community of homeless people who camped out around a former Woodward’s department store in the downtown eastside Vancouver.
Get a preview and gain further insight into the exhibition on Thursday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m. when Kristina Jaugelis & Reece Terris, Donald Lawrence, and Sandra Vida will present artists’ talks. Then arrive to the opening early at 1 p.m on Saturday, July 16 for a walk-through tour of CAMPsites led by exhibition curator Melanie Townsend.
Following the exhibition at the Walter Phillips Gallery, CAMPsites will open at Museum London this September 26 through December 4, 2005.
Downloadable images for this event are available at: http://www.banffcentre.ca/media_room/images/wpg/#camp
Media Contact
Jill Sawyer
Media and Communications Officer, The Banff Centre
403.762.6475